how
(and why)
Our proposal is divided into two parts:extending the scope of the Human
Rightsextending the scope of the beings
that are included
The need for these amendments is becoming an issue due to the latest
developmensts of
science and technology.
In 1979 Karel Vasak defined three generations of human rights:
The first generation includes our civil and political rights: the
rights to life and political participation. It was declared - for the
first time - in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and was echoed in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The second generation is about our social and cultural rights,as in: International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The third generation includes a declaration of solidarity rights:
rights
to peace and clean environment.
We consider biological liberty (shortly: bioliberty) as a next, fourth
generation kind of rights.

extending
the list of the Human Rights (biological liberty)
The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights declared everybody's rights to their
lives, freedom, to marry, to found a family, etc. The emerging new
technologies change the situation, and the legal regulation shoud
follow these changes. To give an example, genetic technologies give an
oppotunity to change the way of reproduction, and smart drugs to modify
our brains. Now it isn't enough to declare parental rights for choosing
the kind of education one prefers for his or her children, but sooner
or
later one will be able to choose the kind of biological and mental
parameters one prefers. We will have an opportunity to eliminate the
riks of the "Genetic Lottery". On the other hand, unless we
declare our rights
to our unperturbed brains, we will loose the control of our mental
states, and loose our traditional liberties, as well.
So the extension of the list of Declared Human Rights both
gives new opportunities and protections to us.

Our proposed amendments to the Declaration of Human Rights:

Everybody has the right to make decisions on their all-time
mind including the right to refuse any governmental or other
interference.

Everybody has the right to modify their bodies without an
external
influence (including the use of enhancement technologies and
either active or passive euthanasia)

Everybody has the right to choose reproductive technologies
to
give life to their children or to reproduce themselves (including
cloning)

extending the scope of those beings that
are
included
It is declared by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights that every human has the same rights.
The authors of this document used the "human beings" term as it seemed
to be evindent to them that only a human being can be regarded as an
intellignet being. But now, facing with the perspectives of
biotechnology, it seems to be a real possibility that other, non human
or non fully human forms of intelligence will appear. So our second
proposal is
to extend the Declaration of Human Rights to every intelligent being,
and instead of
"Human Rights", to use the "Rights of Intelligent Beings".
Similarly, replace the term "men and women" with "intelligent beings"
in
the Declaration of the Rights of Intelligent Beings, as not only two
genders are possible, and we should not exclude other ones.